


for a heart beats best in a bed beside the one that it loves

by priorwalter



Series: Andreil Week 2019 [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Good Omens Fusion, F/M, M/M, Marriage, No Good Omens Knowledge Required, a softer andrew and neil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 19:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19708192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/priorwalter/pseuds/priorwalter
Summary: “When are you getting married?” Dan asks, apropos of nothing. “It’s legal now and all that.”Neil frowns. “It’s legal for two men to get married. The law is not as clear on angels and demons.”“Marriage is a human concept,” Andrew adds.“You love humans, though,” Matt reminds them. “And you already act like an old married couple.”Neil rolls his eyes. “What's the point? It’s not like we have commitment issues. It’s hard to form any other long-term relationships when you’re all so temporary.”Andrew elbows Neil. Right, it’s rude to remind them of their own mortality. Well, too late now.***Or, how the Serpent of Eden and the Guardian of the very same garden go about getting married. A Good Omens AU.





	for a heart beats best in a bed beside the one that it loves

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Crane Your Neck by Lady Lamb. From the prompts for Andreil Week Day 1: alternate meeting, fantasy AU, magic AU. 
> 
> No Good Omens knowledge is required, the fic should make sense without it, but if you haven't watched/read Good Omens, you really should.

Neil has gone by many names during his six thousand odd years on Earth. He started out as Nathaniel, a recently Fallen angel. For a while, he was the Serpent of Eden. After one or two millennia on Earth, he grew tired of both and began to change it every couple decades until finally settling on Neil. It had taken him the better part of the second century to decide, but it didn’t hurt that Andrew liked Neil, too, much better than Nathaniel or Stefan or Alex. (He didn’t like the Serpent of Eden, either, but that was to be expected from the Guardian of Eden, really.)

Still, he likes to assume different names to trick humans; right now, he’s calling himself Chad and he thinks that this young man who’s too polite to tell him to fuck off will benefit from going vegan, really, it’s life changing, I mean how do you even live with yourself killing all those animals? After Neil goes on for so long he’s sure he would have committed homicide if their positions were switched, the young man finally interrupts, claiming he’d love to hear more but he’s got to get to work.

Andrew appears behind him from where he was watching from the background. “You sure do a lot of lurking for an angel, angel,” Neil says idly. Andrew claims he doesn’t like it when Neil calls him ‘angel’, but the look on his face always says otherwise. Besides, Andrew _is_ an angel. It baffles Neil how humans don’t see it, even without the wings: he has beautiful hazel eyes and angelic blond hair, as well as an aura of power that humans always gravitate toward without realizing it. If Neil weren’t already a demon, he’d have Fallen anyway the moment he set eyes on Andrew, tempted by sins of the flesh. 

“Stop mooning,” Andrew snaps. “Those infernal sunglasses don’t stop me from reading your face, idiot.”

Neil snakes his arms around Andrew’s waist. “I don’t care if you see me _mooning_. What’s on your mind?”

Andrew rolls his eyes. “Nothing.”

“C’mon, you didn’t even try to thwart my hellish wiles just now,” Neil wheedles.

“I hardly call trying to tempt someone into veganism a hellish wile,” Andrew argues. 

“My lot created vegans, though. It’ll please head office no matter what. Leading priests to sin is so overdone.” 

Neil lets Andrew take his face in one hand. “I made the lights at the crosswalk work in that guy’s favour so he wouldn’t be late. Wile thwarted.” 

Neil sighs. “You’re no fun. But something’s still on your mind.” 

Andrew pinches Neil’s cheek. “Nothing. Leave it.” 

“Tell me or I’ll tell Matt and he’ll try to act like a relationship counselor until you spit it out,” Neil replies. Matt is Andrew and Neil’s friend. They met him when the world almost ended and then didn’t. His girlfriend is Dan Wilds, who is a witch. They met when Matt was part of the Witchfinder Army. It was very sweet.

Andrew groans. “I hate you.” Neil grins. Andrew has told him he hates him thousands and thousands of times over the course of their six-thousand-year existence, but he stopped meaning it a long, long time ago. “Apparently big changes are happening upstairs,” Andrew finally admits. “Power changing hands after the Apocalypse.” A pregnant pause. Then, “Angels are being reassigned.” 

Neil presses a quick kiss to Andrew’s lips. “They won’t touch you,” he promises. “No one knows what to do with us after the whole Apocalypse thing.” He smiles in the way only a demon can, all teeth and terribly unsettling. Andrew doesn’t even blink. “I won’t let them take you anyway.” 

Andrew presses his head into Neil’s chest and says, “I want ice cream.” Neil snaps, and they appear in Andrew’s ice cream shop. It’s only an ice cream shop in name; Andrew doesn’t actually let anyone inside. He doesn’t have the disposition for customer service, so the sign is always flipped to _closed_. Sometimes, Andrew lets Matt and Dan come to visit, or sometimes Allison and Renee and their little boy, the Antichrist. Today, though, it’s just Andrew and Neil. 

Andrew spends a few minutes deciding on a flavour, and then gives himself a few scoops of Moose Tracks. He sits in one of the booths, and Neil joins him. Someone peers into the shop, but quickly turns away.

It’s not an uncommon occurrence for stray humans to stare into the ice cream shop. Sometimes they even knock on the door, which is understandable; Neil and Andrew are often there even though the sign says closed. Still, a good many turn away without quite knowing why once they see Neil. He tends to forget that he _looks_ like a demon. He has flaming red hair and dresses in black, and something about his aura makes people walk on the opposite side of the street. It sort of balances out since he’s usually with Andrew, though. 

“No one’s going to take you away, angel,” Neil says softly. “I don’t care about what the ineffable plan, or God, thinks should happen. I say you stay on Earth.”

“And the Almighty has nothing on you, Neil,” Andrew hisses (which is really more in character for Neil, but it’s not worth mentioning).

“You trust me.” Neil doesn’t bother to make it a question; they’ve known each other for six thousand years and they’ve been a _this_ for nearly two thousand of those. Andrew nods. “Then trust me when I tell you no one can take you away from me.”

Andrew finishes his ice cream and makes the empty bowl reappear, washed, with the other dishes behind the counter. “Come on, we’re going to Palmetto.” 

Palmetto is a tiny village where the Apocalypse started and then just as quickly stopped. It’s where Dan, Matt, Renee, Allison, and the Antichrist himself, Kevin, live. Andrew and Neil have a cottage in Palmetto, but Neil likes the buzz of the city and Andrew will never tire of driving the Maserati much too fast through the busy streets, no matter how angelic his nature. 

They speed down the back roads to Palmetto, but Andrew always slows down if they pass through a populated area. Neil, like always, ribs him for being nice and Andrew rolls his eyes and slows down enough that it annoys Neil in retaliation.

The door to Fox Cottage is unlocked as usual. Neil has warned Matt and Dan against that many times, knowing very well the sort of people who might take advantage of that, but he’s always met with the claim that ‘nothing bad happens in Palmetto’. Not even the Apocalypse is enough for them, apparently. Neil walks in without knocking, and Andrew follows. He, of course, would never do such a thing, but since Neil did it first, really, what’s the harm? 

Matt and Dan, luckily making dinner and not busy with more couple-y activities that Neil would rather not see, greet them with twin smiles. 

“Hey, guys. What brings you to Palmetto?” Matt asks cheerfully. 

“Oh, you know,” Neil says vaguely, and doesn’t continue. Andrew waves his hand to move the handle of the pot on the stove out of the way before Dan burns her hand on it, and Matt grins. 

“It’s hard to believe you’re the angel and Neil’s the demon,” Matt remarks. 

“I’m plenty demonic,” Neil argues. “I made sure we ran over a squirrel on the way here.”

“It survived and a child is going to find it on the side of the road and bring it to an animal hospital,” Andrew counters while reaching into Neil’s pocket for the lollipops he always keeps in case Andrew forgets. 

Matt, used to their bickering by now, plows forward. “Even the way you look. It’s just a little too on the nose, you know? Like, you have angelic blond hair and golden eyes, and Neil’s got hair red as the fires of hell. It’s just too stereotypical.”

“The fires of hell are nowhere near as nice as my hair,” Neil says, frowning. “And the hottest fire isn’t even red.” 

“Your hair is nowhere near nice,” Andrew mutters, popping the lollipop in his mouth. “If anyone thinks it is it’s because you tempted them into liking it.” 

“ _You_ like my hair,” Neil points out. “Angels love everything. You love me specifically.” 

Andrew sighs and doesn’t respond, since he doesn’t like to lie but dislikes admitting to liking Neil’s hair equally. 

“When are you getting married?” Dan asks, apropos of nothing. “It’s legal now and all that.” 

Neil frowns. “It’s legal for two men to get married. The law is not as clear on angels and demons.”

“Marriage is a human concept,” Andrew adds.

“You love humans, though,” Matt reminds them. “And you already act like an old married couple.” 

Neil rolls his eyes. “What’s the point? It’s not like we have commitment issues. It’s hard to form any other long-term relationships when you’re all so temporary.” 

Andrew elbows Neil. Right, it’s rude to remind them of their own mortality. Well, too late now. Dan, after an awkward pause, replies, “Well, I think it would be a nice ceremony, and a big _fuck you_ to your bosses.” 

Neil ponders this. “If Hell didn’t care when we started fucking, I don’t think marriage will do much.” 

“I take back what I said about not knowing why Neil’s the demon,” Matt pipes up from where he’s chopping up some onions. Neil makes them extra tear-inducing. Andrew glares. 

“Isn’t sex before marriage a sin?” Dan asks. “Andrew, you’re breaking the rules.”

“I’m also supposed to be spying on him from afar and thwarting his demonic wiles,” Andrew says drily. “The rules have never mattered.”

Neil smiles dopily and takes Andrew’s hand. “Aw, babe—” Andrew jabs him in the stomach before he can finish his sentence. Neil wheezes and hisses, “Calm down, angel, you’re _ssso_ dramatic. No need to give me any bruisesss.” 

Andrew pulls his hand out of Neil’s and mutters, “ _I'_ _m_ the dramatic one.” His hand brushes against Neil’s abdomen, though, and the pain from his stomach punch fades immediately. 

“Old married couple!” Matt repeats. “Come on, we’ll clear our calendar, just give us a date. Spring weddings are beautiful, don’t you think?”

“Look, Matthew,” Neil says, mock-apologetically, “when you’ve known each other since the literal, real, I cannot stress this enough, _actual_ beginning of time, a human ritual like that doesn’t mean a whole lot. Sorry, buddy.”

The subject of marriage is dropped. For a while, at least. 

**

It’s been centuries since Neil believed himself to be completely demon, or Andrew to be completely angel. They’ve known each other for too long to _not_ have influenced one another. Still, Neil asks one morning as they’re curled up together on the couch in their apartment, “Does it bother you?”

“What?”

Neil huffs. “What Dan said.”

Andrew pauses to think, and then raises an incredulous eyebrow. “The marriage thing, or the sex before marriage thing?”

“The second one.” 

Andrew sighs. “Are you really worried about tempting me to sin after all these years, dear?” He shifts so he and Neil are face to face and puts a hand on the back of his neck. “Ridiculous demon. You can’t seriously be stuck on this.” 

Neil looks away. He suddenly feels too exposed without his sunglasses. “I don’t want you to Fall.”

Andrew tilts Neil’s head back toward him and leans in until their foreheads are touching. “I can’t believe I have to say this, Neil, but I don’t care that we’re having premarital sex. If Heaven doesn’t care about the fact that I’m in love with a demon, they certainly won’t care about _that_.”

Neil smirks. “You love me, do you?”

“Shut up,” Andrew snaps. “You talk too much. You should have been part of that order of chattering nuns.” Before Neil can respond, though, Andrew kisses him, which is the most effective method of making Neil shut his mouth. Before they can get too far, though, Andrew pulls back. Neil whines. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Andrew asks, his usual bored monotone serious. “We’re not married.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Neil snaps. “Get back here.” Andrew does.

**

Neil wakes up to the sun filtering in through the curtains in his and Andrew’s bedroom. It’s rare that he misses his morning run, and Andrew will certainly take the opportunity to make fun of him. 

(Andrew doesn’t understand why Neil likes to wake up early to go running. “I thought you didn’t like Hell. Why are you intent on torturing yourself every day.” 

“You don’t know anything about torture, angel.”

“I have to live with _you_ , I think I know something.”)

Now, though, while Andrew sleeps, Neil takes the opportunity to stare at him. Andrew doesn’t much enjoy sleeping, usually; though he complains about Neil getting up at the crack of dawn, he prefers to go for drives at odd hours of the night or read in his armchair in their room while Neil sleeps, dead to the world. If it were possible for Neil to be blessed, he would consider sleeping Andrew a blessing. His intense eyes flutter as he dreams about something or other. His hair is in a spectacular bedhead, so soft-looking Neil wants to run his hand through it. He must be the luckiest being in the universe, because no one else gets to see the angel Andrew snuffle in his sleep.

Even though Andrew rarely sleeps, he always tries to be in the room when Neil wakes up, even if he’s just sitting on the edge of the bed scrolling through his phone or staring out the window, lost in thought. Neil thinks about this and is overwhelmed by love for Andrew; he can’t help but press a kiss to his pillow-creased cheek. Unsurprisingly, Andrew wakes up.

“No run? Old age getting to you?” He mumbles into the pillow.

“You’re old,” Neil mutters weakly. While technically true, they don’t look it; their bodies are somewhere in the mid-twenties range, but baby-faced enough that they frequently get mistaken for teenagers. It was a lot easier to deal with a few thousand years ago when that was closer to the average life expectancy and they didn’t card you at the liquor store. (Not that they needed to _buy_ anything if they didn’t want to, but really, it was nice to have the option.)

Andrew rolls over unceremoniously and pulls Neil’s arm around his waist. “Matt texted me last night,” he announces, a non-sequitur.

Neil snuggles closer to him. “Mm?” 

“He’s been looking at engagement ring websites,” Andrew explains.

“Did he tell you that?” Neil asks. “Of his own will?”

Andrew makes an indecisive noise. “People are always trying to tell me things. Angelic nature, and all that.”

“They’ve hardly known each other a year. Isn’t that fast? Oh, well. I guess they’ve got to make the most of their short little lives,” Neil replies. “Good for them.”

“One year as opposed to what, six thousand?” Andrew says tonelessly. 

“Andrew,” Neil asks in an odd voice, “do you want to get married?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Neil. Surely you were around for the invention of the joke?” 

“Fuck off.” 

The rest of the day is spent gallivanting around Columbia. Neil manages to make the Internet stop working for a quarter of the downtown area and Andrew manifests a couple hundred dollar bills and leaves them on the ground for some down-on-their-luck children to find. All in all, it’s a wonderful afternoon. Neil finds his gaze getting stuck on jewellery stores as they wander around from shop to shop. He tells himself it’s for Matt. There’s no jewellery stores in the tiny town of Palmetto, after all. 

**

The next time Neil and Andrew find themselves at Fox Cottage, Kevin is over while his moms are away for the weekend. Andrew, despite what he says, loves Kevin like nothing else (except Neil, maybe), which makes it all the more odd when Andrew disappears.

He’s not far, never far from Neil. Neil finds him sitting on the roof of the cottage. Neil climbs up to sit beside him silently. 

“Upstairs called,” Andrew says after a while. 

“And?”

“Michael asked if I wanted to stay down here. Said I’ve done good work, and I could get promoted if I wanted to,” he explains boredly. 

Neil frowns. “What did you say?”

“I told her I want to stay.” He leans bodily on Neil. Neil wraps his arm around Andrew’s shoulder and presses a kiss to the crown of his head. “I don’t want them to make me leave.”

Neil sighs. “You’re not going anywhere, angel. You’re staying right here with me, or there’ll be Hell to pay.” Andrew snickers at the bad joke, but doesn't respond.

A small voice calls to then from the ground. “Guys? Matt made lunch. You have to come down right now because it’s rude to refuse people’s food.” Andrew’s sullen face brightens at the sound of the Antichrist’s voice. Andrew has always had a soft spot for children. 

“We’ll be right there, Kev,” Neil promises. “Just one minute.” Kevin goes back inside. Neil kisses Andrew on the cheek. “What can I do?”

Andrew shakes his head. “I don’t know. Kill Heaven.” He disentangles from Neil’s grip and starts to shimmy down onto the ground. “Don’t keep the Antichrist waiting, now.” 

Neil doesn’t talk much during lunch. His thoughts are preoccupied with Andrew. How can he assure Andrew that they’ll never be separated? He knows Andrew has complete trust in him, but he also knows that their respective head offices can be terrifying when they need to be. Neil and Andrew aren’t particularly high-ranking officers, after all. His gaze wanders to Matt, who is locked in an animated argument with Dan about the merits of using physical paperwork over computers, and thinks about marriage. 

Marriage is a human concept. It’s really pointless for Neil and Andrew to do it; they don’t need the tax benefits. There’s no reason for them to ever need to be legally recognized as family; the law barely recognizes them in the first place. The ceremony would be a bother, and neither of them would like that anyway. Andrew thinks it’s stupid, too. But, it would be yet another tether between each other, and between them and the Earth. It would mean another reason for Andrew to stay.

Andrew gives him a quizzical look, but Neil shakes his head. It’s a conversation for another day. 

**

In the end, Neil gives in. Was it ever a question that he would? He’s a demon, after all; giving in to temptation is what made him what he is in the first place.

They’re lounging around the apartment. It’s very modern, the opposite of what Neil likes, but it was a compromise. He allowed the chrome kitchen and minimalist decor in exchange for black walls and dark furniture. Andrew grudgingly tolerates it, but Neil doesn’t understand how any room could seem dark or bleak with Andrew in it. Andrew would threaten to skin him if he told him _that_ , though. 

Andrew plucks the sunglasses off of his nose. Neil doesn’t particularly like his snake eyes, but Andrew loves them and says so frequently. Like now. 

“Stop keeping those glasses on while we’re alone, dear,” he says, and then stops abruptly. Every so often (well, more and more often recently), Andrew calls him ‘dear’, probably accidentally. It’s so out of character for Andrew but so in character for an angel that it sometimes makes Neil laugh, but he tries not to because he likes it when Andrew calls him dear. 

“You know I don’t have eyes as pretty as yours, angel,” Neil replies, settling into the old argument like a well-worn sweater. 

Andrew rolls his eyes. “Believe what you want. I love your eyes.” Neil doesn’t know why Andrew has such a hard time admitting he likes Neil’s unkempt hair but freely and often informs him that he thinks his eyes are beautiful. Still, the softness in Andrew’s eyes breaks apart Neil’s self-consciousness and wraps him in a warm happiness he once thought he’d never feel again. 

“Marry me,” Neil blurts out. It wasn’t planned, but the fuzzy feeling in his chest is going to overflow and he needs Andrew to _know_ that they’ll never part, not for as long as Neil lives. 

Andrew frowns. “What?”

“Marry me, Andrew. Let’s get human-married.” 

“I thought you didn’t want to,” Andrew points out pragmatically. “You shouldn’t decide to get married on a whim.” 

“It’s not a whim,” Neil snaps. His voice comes out a little too raw, a little too cracked when he says, “We’ve known each other for six thousand years, Andrew. Six thousand years.” 

“Six thousand years,” Andrew echoes. A small smile lights up his face. “It would be immoral of Heaven to split apart a couple if they were married, you know. That’s something your lot would try.” 

Neil nods. “We could honeymoon. I’ve heard Paris is nice; I’ve hardly been back since the whole French Revolution business.” 

Andrew kisses Neil languidly and lovingly, and they spend the rest of the day wrapped up in one another. Hours later while they lie together in the silky sheets, Andrew rolls over so he and Neil are facing one another, faces centimetres apart. “I love you, dearest.”

“And I you, angel,” Neil whispers.

**

They do have a ceremony, but the only guests in attendance are Matt, Dan, Renee, Allison, Kevin, and Kevin’s three friends who aided in stopping the Apocalypse. It’s short and sweet and involves a whole lot less kissing than Neil would have liked, but that’ll happen later.

For now, he basks in the presence of his naive, short-lived human friends. He doesn’t let go of Andrew unless he absolutely has to, but he’s found that no one really wants to anger a demon on his wedding day. By the end of the night, everyone is tired and happy, none more than Neil and Andrew themselves. 

“I’ll be with you until the next Armageddon, and then the next one after that,” Neil promises, “and all the Armageddons until the world dies, and then we’ll go make love on Alpha Sssentauri where no angel or demon could find usss.” 

“There better not be a second Armageddon,” Andrew hisses. Then, “Do you want to go to sleep? You’re hissing.”

Neil grins and kisses him briefly. “I’m happy right here, angel. Right here with you. Husband.” 

“Husband,” Andrew echoes. “That’s not so bad.”

Neil lets Andrew cradle Neil against his chest, relishing the closeness.

“No, not bad at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me at jonathansimz.tumblr.com.


End file.
